


fourteen conversations on a balcony

by orphan_account



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-02-01
Updated: 2020-02-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 18:41:30
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 3,710
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22520395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: fourteen noncanonical conversations between lena and kara that are not connected at all
Relationships: Kara Danvers/Lena Luthor
Comments: 5
Kudos: 44





	1. i.

**Author's Note:**

> i honestly didn't intend for this one to be sad

_i._

“When were you going to tell me you were leaving?” 

“Before I left.”

“And when were you going to leave?” 

“Tomorrow.”

“And that’s it then?” Kara asked. She sat down on the small wired chair.

“No,” Lena shook her head, and Kara wanted more than anything to get an explanation, but she knew why Lena was leaving. Their relationship was broken. And no amount of emotional glue and I’m not mad at yous were ever going to fix it. Not anymore, not after the lies came to light. Not after Supergirl crashed through the last bond that held them together.

“Are you ever going to come back?”

“Maybe,” Lena sighed. She was always sighing these days. “I’m not mad at you,” she started to say. 

The words, not anymore lingered in the air, becoming more palpable as they stayed silent.

“It feels like you stayed mad, not at anyone else, but at me.”

“It would seem that way, wouldn’t it?”

“What other way could it be?” She was the one that broke them.

“You know,” Lena turned to look at her for a moment, and then her gaze shifted to the National City skyline. “During our friendship, I thought to myself, if Luthors had the capacity to fall in love, I would have fallen in love with you.”

Kara swallowed, but stayed silent. She didn’t want to break the spell of Lena’s words.

“And to some extent, I think I did, fall in love with you. But I don’t think the love I have for you is enough.”

“Why?” Kara whispered softly. She wished for the wind to take her voice and discard it somewhere Lena couldn’t hear. The explanation would hurt more. But the wind wasn’t so kind, and Lena turned to look at her. 

Her green eyes were shining with clarity and Kara had never hated the color green until this moment.

“Because, Kara,” Lena stepped closer, invading her senses with bergamot and rose. It made her rise from the chair; she wanted to come closer, to be near Lena, but she also wanted to back away, to escape from the eventual heartbreak. “No matter how much I love you, it hurts to look at you.” And then Lena was gone, backed away, her hands were reaching for the door and sliding it open. Kara looked up into green eyes gazing back at her in pain.

Lena walked away.


	2. ii.

_ii._

There are some days where Lena doesn’t feel human. Her emotions feel cold to her, distant and muted and she has to fumble around in her heart to reach some appropriate feeling for whatever situation she’s found herself in. And then there are the days when everything is too much, overwhelmingly so, and she doesn’t know how to leave her bedroom to start the day.

Today, she’s on her penthouse balcony. Today, her emotions are jumbled, like a hastily put together ball of loose yarn that someone found in some maze promising to lead them to the center, but it never does. And she thinks in metaphors and makes up riddles to amuse herself, but it’s never as fun as she hopes because there’s never a clever enough answer, not one that she could be satisfied with.

She doesn’t know what to do with herself and it scares her, in a way that makes her want to reach out and grab onto a lifeline, but knows that even the things that are supposed to save her from drowning, are not foolproof.

And then, Supergirl comes flying in, doing a swoop before she lands softly on Lena’s balcony. It’s always Supergirl who knows when Lena needs saving and part of her hates it. She wishes that it was Kara instead, but she can’t give that feeling a name.

“How are you?” Supergirl asks her, and her voice is earnest, like the hero genuinely wants to know, and Lena does want to answer. She wants, beyond herself, to honestly say she’s okay. 

“I’m alright,” she lies.

Supergirl nods with a smile on her face, and Lena knows that the hero doesn’t believe her. It makes her want to cry, from relief or something else.

“I’m going to be okay,” Lena tries again.

“It’s okay to not be,” Supergirl tells her.

“Everyone seems to want to know how I’m feeling,” Lena says, “myself included.”

“It’s okay to not know how you feel. Sometimes, I think I’m not hungry, and then later, I realize I am.”

“I have a feeling you’re always hungry.”

“Yeah,” Supergirl smiles, “but sometimes, I don’t know if I am. Until I am. Does that make sense?”

“About nothing makes sense,” Lena tells her truthfully.

“That’s okay too,” Supergirl nods at her.

“Have you owned a fountain pen?”

Supergirl looks at her confused and Lena fights the smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

“A fountain pen?” The hero asks.

“My father used to own this Parker 51. He said it was the first pen he ever bought for himself with his own money. He was so proud of it. Owned so many vacumatic fillers because they would wear down, and he would need to replace them. It was really finicky, but he loved it. He loved the way it made him feel when he wrote. He bought more pens over the years, but nothing replaced his first Parker 51. Lex used to convince me to steal the pen when my father wasn’t looking.”

“Did you?”

Lena shakes her head. “I couldn’t. Lionel was a scary man.”

Lena feels the weight of Supergirl’s frown. It makes her want to retreat within herself. Distantly, she hears the soft crunch of metal and lowers her gaze to Supergirl’s hands. 

“It wasn’t like that,” she tells the hero. “He never hit me, or Lex. I don’t think. I don’t know,” she amends. She doesn’t remember him ever hitting Lex, but she also doesn’t remember why Lex would sometimes shrink away from their father. Or why he would look at their father with so much contempt and promise to protect her.

She hears Supergirl take a hard swallow, and it brings her back to the present. “I’m sorry,” she tells the hero, “I don’t know why I’m telling you this.” 

“No,” Supergirl shakes her head hard, and looks at Lena so softly that she swears she can almost see Kara in the hero’s eyes before it’s gone in a blink. Supergirls steps closer to her, and she’s tall, imposing with wide shoulders and it blocks everything out. All Lena can see is the hero, and the symbol shining on the hero’s chest. Lena wants to reach out and move her fingers along the ridges of the ‘S’, to maybe feel an inch of what it’s like to be universally adored for being who you are.

“Never,” Supergirl is clutching her hands, and Lena finds herself unable to breathe. “Never apologize for this.” There’s so much conviction in the hero’s voice. Lena nods dumbly, not knowing what to say. She wishes she was like Kara, who always seems to have a way with words.

Supergirl’s eyes are shining and blue and Lena thinks the super might start crying and she’s not sure what to do with a crying superhero on her balcony, so she squeezes Supergirl’s hands and hopes for an emergency.

One doesn’t come, but Supergirl does blink and take a step back. Her hands move away from Lena’s and she stands awkwardly, like she doesn’t want to leave, but knows she crossed an invisible line Lex drew in the sand when he attacked Superman.

“Umm,” the hero stammers a bit, and Lena stands frozen in place. “Kara!” Supergirl squawks. “Kara Danvers asked me to check up on you and that’s why I’m here,” the hero continues, giving an explanation to a question Lena never asked.

“Okay,” Lena blinks, and nothing about this makes sense, but she wants to stop giving herself impossible riddles with no answers to solve. 

She wants to follow her instincts.

Lena reaches up to hug Supergirl. The hero is warm and her arms wrap around Lena slowly, but it’s firm and tight. And Lena isn’t sure if she wants the hero to let her go.

“Thank you, Supergirl.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I kind of like the idea that Lena is a bit in love with both Kara and Supergirl, in like the universe where she's lying to herself about knowing because emotional vulnerability is hard and maybe it's easier to fool yourself into thinking you're a bit in love with two people that you can never really have than one person who loves you back and is just waiting for you to be ready.


	3. iii.

_iii._

“What are you doing out here?” Kara asks, she gently sets down two cups of coffee, stroopwafel on top of both.

“Sunrise,” Lena tilts her head towards the sun. It’s peeking out over the city skyline. Lena’s bundled in blankets, and Kara is forever endeared.

“That’s nice,” she sits next to her girlfriend, on the empty seat, taking a large bite out of her cookie. The pull of the caramel isn’t as wispy as she’d like, she should’ve let it melt more.

“Do you remember when we first met?” Lena suddenly asks.

“The first first time or the second first time?” 

“Either,” Lena takes a sip of the coffee and gives Kara her wafer, with a muttered, “don’t melt it with your heat vision.”

“I think I was stunned by you both times,” Kara answers with a grin, accepting the cookie.

“Flatterer,” Lena chastises. “I was just thinking, meeting you is like seeing the sunrise after a long time of missing it.”

Kara flushes, “I think you’re the flatterer, flatterer.” She stands and drops a lingering kiss on top of Lena’s head. “Don’t be out too long, it’s going to get colder later.”


	4. iv.

_ iv. _

“You know, you don’t have to pretend to be perfect all the time.”

“That’s funny, coming from Supergirl.”

“I never said I was perfect.”

“You don’t have to,” Lena gently bumps her shoulder. “It’s in what you do.”

“What’s that mean?”

“People tell me it’s okay to be less than perfect, but what they mean is to show them weakness. To be vulnerable in front of them. I’m not willing to do that. Not yet, anyway.

“But you. Everything you do, being  _ Super _ . Everyone already sees and thinks of you as perfect, they don’t care if you’re vulnerable. They don’t want to see you as weak, so they’ll see you as perfect.”

“What about you?” Kara asks. “Do you see me as perfect?”

“I don’t know,” Lena answers honestly.

“I don’t want to see you as perfect.”

“I don’t want to show you my weak side.”

“Not yet, right?” Kara asks, watching Lena in her periphery.

“Not yet,” Lena promises.


	5. v.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is shorter than I originally wanted it to be, and i'm not really happy with the ending, but eh, might come back to this eventually and fix it up for something longer

_ v. _

“Are you going to the afterparty?” A random blonde asks her on her penthouse balcony. Veronica promised this was the afterparty, and Lena knew better than to get her hopes up about Veronica’s promises, but even she has her slip ups.

“No,” she answers curtly.

“Umm, that’s a, that’s a shame,” the blonde seems taken aback, and it gives Lena a slight satisfaction, before the guilt of it comes down on her.

“I’m sorry,” Lena winces.

“It’s okay,” the blonde is quick to say. “I was just... making conversation.”

“Do you do that often?” Lena asks, “at parties.”

The blonde blinks, and smiles sheepishly, “I was thinking of dropping a line, like, only with cute girls at parties, but it feels weird now. I mean, not that you’re not. Cute, that is, you are! But you also seem more than that? Stop me at any point.” Lena let the girl ramble on.

The girl stares at her while she takes a slow sip of her drink. She hates the way the seltzer feels going down her throat, she wishes it was scotch. Bourbon would be nice too.

“I’m...,” the blonde clears her throat, “I’m just... going to go now.”

“You can stay,” Lena tilts her head towards the skyline, “enjoy the view and all that.”

“I can?” The blonde sounds surprised.

“Why not?” Lena shrugs.

“You made it seem like I was bothering you?”

“Not at all,” Lena answers blithely.

“My name’s Kara,” the blonde introduces herself, sticking a hand out for a shake.

She doesn’t take the blonde’s hand. It hangs awkwardly in the air before the girl takes the hint and sheepishly lowers it. Lena wishes she were anywhere else but here at this party her girlfriend threw with these strangers who she doesn’t care to know, doing god knows what in her apartment. And then there’s this girl who randomly comes up to her asking about an afterparty that she knows Veronica would drag her to despite promising. And she hates this, hates feeling like this, and hates being sober. She wants the days back when she could just be fun.

“I don’t care,” Lena explodes on the poor girl. “I hate this party! I hate all of this! And I don’t want to go to whatever ridiculous afterparty you’re throwing because I. Don’t. Care.”

“Umm,” the girl blinks. “Okay. Breathe. Look around, what do you see?”

Lena’s gasping, her mouth feels dry and she can’t stop shaking. She wants a drink. Something alcoholic.

“Listen to me,” the blonde says. “Just look around for a moment, what do you see?”

Lena wants the girl to go away, but she won’t budge. “Lights, people. Blue,” she mutters looking into the blonde’s eyes.

“Okay, good. That’s good. What do you hear?” The girl tilts her head to motion sound. It’s bizarre and endearing.

Lena takes a deep breath and listens to the generic pop song she knows Veronica hates, “That song that won’t stop playing in malls, and people yelling. I think I’m okay now.”

“Really?” The blonde asks.

“I’m sorry for yelling at you.”

“Oh,” the blonde blinks. “You didn’t? You looked at me and started hyperventilating. I think I would prefer it if you did yell though, much less scary.”

Oh, Lena thinks to herself. “I thought, nevermind. Thank you.”

“No problem, I used to get panic attacks a lot growing up.”

“I hate these things,” Lena admits. “And I think I need to break up with my girlfriend.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.” The girl apologizes.

“No. It’s okay. It was a long time coming. Your name is Kara right?”

“Yeah,” Kara smiles, it’s bright and Lena finds herself smiling back. “Nice to meet you,” Kara holds her hand out.

“Nice to meet you,” Lena shakes her hand.


	6. vi.

_ vi. _

There are days when the city is so quiet that Kara isn’t sure what to do with herself. Often, she finds herself flying. It’s a joy, she thinks, to be so high up in the sky.

Landing on Lena’s balcony feels almost like second nature. She ends up here more often than not, even when Lena’s not there.

“Is there anything you would do if there were no consequences?” Lena had asked her once. 

Kara didn’t have an answer for her then. She was afraid. She still is, a bit terrified; and the cold feeling of fear runs deep into her bones. But part of being brave is admitting she’s afraid and she wants to be brave.

She knocks on Lena’s balcony door. There are about a dozen things Kara wants to say.

The slide of the door is quiet. 

“I want to ask if I can kiss you,” Kara blurts out. “If there were no consequences, then that’s what I want. I want to ask to kiss you.”

“That can be arranged,” Lena’s voice is amused. “Why are you crying, darling?”

“Because,” she sobs. Her tears won’t stop falling. Lena isn’t here. Not really. All she’s left with is this facsimile of her best friend. A copy who doesn’t know what the real Lena means to her.

“Don’t cry,” The Lena clone tries to comfort her. “It’s going to be alright, Kara. You don’t have to cry.”

“I’m going to save you,” Kara promises. “I’m going to go to Apokolips and save you.”

“Okay,” The Lena clone smiles at her.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know this vaguely feels like set up, but honestly, I don't know how much I want to explore this whole thing. It's just a random idea I came up with


	7. vii.

_ vii. _

“Do you ever feel like the world is ending almost every other month?” Lena asked her. They’re on Lena’s balcony, after the end of Reign.

“I try not to think about it,” Kara lied. She felt it often, the end of the world. Hers did end once. She doesn’t want it to end again.

“I feel like there’s always something,” Lena continued. “If it isn’t ending today, it’s tomorrow, or the next one. It gets tiring. When I first thought about relocating the company, I was hoping to go somewhere where the world isn’t ending.”

“Instead you went to the next city with a Super,” Kara said, not sure where Lena was going with this; why she wanted to tell this to Supergirl and not Kara Danvers.

“I thought you were going to be different,” Lena smiled at her, it didn’t reach her eyes the way they used to.

“I am different,” Kara wanted to say, but the words stayed inside of her.

“I originally didn’t want to move here,” Lena admitted. “I wanted to stay and be with Jack and be happy, even if the world was constantly ending.”

“Why didn’t you?” Kara didn’t mean for the words to come out harsh.

Lena didn’t answer for a long time, she looked pensive, carefully choosing her words. Kara wished for an emergency, but there never is one after an end of the world event.

“I think I wanted to meet you,” Lena wasn’t looking at her. Her face was turned towards the reddening sky. It made her look beautiful, but those were words Kara couldn’t be using to describe Lena.

“Do you regret it?”

“Meeting you?”

“Yeah.”

“Sometimes I do, and sometimes I don’t.”

Kara turned to look at the sky instead of studying Lena’s face, swallowing her heartache she gently bumps her elbow into Lena’s, “I’m glad to have met you. If it means anything.”

They stood in silence. Lena, not saying anything more, and Kara, wishing to add something else.


	8. viii.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inspired by Tablo

viii.

“Would you rather eat pie that tastes like poop, or,” Lena smiles, “poop that tastes like pie?”

“Ummmm... What kind of pie?”

“Any kind. Pumpkin.”

“Hmmmmm,” Kara ponders, “I don’t like pumpkin that much.”

“Fine then, Lena rolls her eyes and struggles not to call her best friend a heathen. “What kind of pie do you want it to be?”

“I like chocolate pecan?”

“That’s so sweet,” Lena wrinkles her nose in disgust.

“Hey!” Kara laughs, “I like sweet stuff.”

“I mean, yeah. But there’s sweet and then there’s  _ Sweet _ .”

“You know,” Kara smiles at Lena and leans into her, “I’m really not hearing a difference.”

“There  _ is _ a difference,” Lena insists and bumps her side into Kara.

“Where did you get this question from?” 

Lena shrugs. “A podcast I was listening to.”

“I think if the poop was bunny poop, I would maybe eat it. It’ll taste like chocolate right?”

“Kara Danvers!” Lena laughs, it’s loud and bellyaching, in the way Kara loves. “Are you seriously entertaining eating poop.”

Kara smiles and steps closer still to Lena, giving her a bit of her body warmth. “Well,” she taps her nose as if she was in deep thought, “two conditions, it has to be bunny poop, and you have to be there to laugh at me.”

“I think if I was there, I would stop you.”

“Even better,” Kara smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> so, i've heard some of these chapters are sad, i'm sorry


	9. ix.

ix.

“So,” Lena sits in the empty seat next to Kara. Lex and his soon-to-be boyfriend were back in the kitchen mixing some sort of drink. “Your cousin and my brother.”

“Yeah?”

“What do you think?”

“Ummm... I don’t know,” Kara’s smile is strained. “They seem happy.”

Lena narrows her eyes. “Look, I know you and Clark are from the south or whatever, but–”

“Oh! No,” Kara’s eyes are wide. “No, I just. I’m not straight! I mean, I don’t even really know what that means, like being straight or gay or whatever. That’s... That’s not it. I just... I thought this weekend was just going to be me and Clark,” Kara finishes weakly.

“Oh, okay then,” Lena sucks her teeth, she hates jumping to conclusions. “My brother really likes your cousin.”

“My cousin likes your brother,” Kara smiles, and it’s genuine. “My cousin’s the only person left in my family. My biological family, and I don’t know. I thought... I don’t know what I thought. I don’t know why I’m telling you this,” her smile wanes. 

“I was adopted,” Lena tells her. 

“Oh. Cool. Me too.”

“I meant,” Lena taps Kara to get her attention. They’re looking at each other, and Lena’s noticing the blue in Kara’s eyes. “I’m down to listen to your emotional baggage and deep seated childhood traumas.”

“Thanks,” Kara laughs. “Also, just so you know. Not everyone “from the south,” she makes air-quotes, “are homophobic.”

“So sorry,” Lena smiles, “I’m an out of touch city elitist.”

“I forgive you.”

“Tell me about your family?”

“There’s not much to say,” Kara sighs. “My biological parents died when I was younger and Clark wasn’t ready to take me in.”

“My parents once left me in a museum. A security guard found me crying and let me stay in the office while they called my parents. Turns out, they left because Lex had a stomach ache. What?” Lena takes in the sad eyes Kara keeps shooting her, “I thought we were sharing trauma.” Kara looks like she wants to ask, and Lena wants to nip the question in the bud. “I’m over it, otherwise, I wouldn’t be telling you.”

“Still,” Kara insists. “I want to be sad for you.”

“That makes one of us. You don’t have to be sad for me, it’s not sad for me anymore. The security guard let me play with his baton.”

Kara smiles, “I can imagine that.” A younger Lena swinging a baton, it was cute.

“I’m sorry you didn’t get to spend this whole weekend with your cousin.”

“I think I’m starting to look at it differently. They are cute together, my cousin and your brother.”

“Yeah,” Lena smiles, “I think so too.”


	10. x.

_ x. _

“If you could be any animal, which one would you be?”

“A raagsnofbin,” Kara answered seriously.

Lena let out a loud laugh, and turned to face Kara with a wide smile, “Is that a real one or a fake one?”

“It’s real!” Kara insisted, launching into a detailed explanation.

It took a while for them to get here but they’re here now and they wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry, it's short. I did a big crafts project today


End file.
